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Monday, October 22, 2018

National Bully Prevention Month Brings Awareness

It’s October, which means it’s National Bully Prevention Month! Many people don’t know about this event which started in 2006. This is the time of the year where everyone is reminded about the causes and effects of bullying to be more aware and stop violence.This event was originally started by PACER Center, an organization that supports families of children with disabilities. Children with disabilities are often targeted with bullying so that’s how it was created. PACER has some very important and educational websites on different tips for teens, parents, and resources to use all year long.They created this campaign to keep all youth safe from bullying and to be aware of it. It was originally started in 2006 whereas it was a week long. Then in 2010, they decided people should be aware more about it so they changed it from a week to a month long.People who are commonly bullied have many reasons of why they could possibly be bullied for. Some are usually those who have more in life (such as family, love, or things) than the bully. Some reasons could be because of their weight; whether they’re “too skinny” or “too chubby.” They might be picked on by their style of clothing or being poor. Even the color of their skin or their religion might be the reason but those are not as common as other reasons.One thing everybody needs to be aware of is bullying can lead to devastated and mostly long term effects such as low or no self-esteem, increased anxiety, and depression. One thing to look for is not the profile of the person - what others expect - but the behavior change because it might be a lead to the occurence of being bullied or bullying.For example, if someone has trouble or sees bullying at home, they might see it as acceptable or okay at school.Bullies commonly have social power. They could be high in the popularity of the class or school. They sometimes could be concerned about their power as if they want more friends or attention just by bullying. Or people could expect the opposite, they could be more isolated, depressed, or aggressive. They might have a tendency to bully so they can feel better about themselves or they might have family issues at home that leads them to think bullying is okay.Higher authority is always the way to go to report or stop bullying. If there is bullying happening, adults should be aware of where and who. Parents of the child and the bully should be notified. They could help by talking through the situation and try to solve it.If you ever see any type of bullying going on, you should always tell a trusted adult. If it’s not too serious, you could step in and help out the victim and still tell someone. If it is serious, then you should stay out of it and tell someone. It might change the fact that they can’t just talk but there might be more action required out of the situation.

1 comment:

I am cool with the page and fine with it being an open page. I only bring it up because there was recently a thread on the page discussing the open nature of the page. During that thread it was pointed out that the church opted not to operate a facebook page and so several congregants began and administer the page. There seemed to be a lot of folks who were surprised or had forgotten that the page was unofficial.